Best laid plans: Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion and Northern Territory MLA Bess Price in the air on a whistle-stop tour of bush schools.

Matt Parr; ABC

The challenges facing the Federal Government's new bush school truancy measures were highlighted today when Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion was forced to cancel a trip to a remote Northern Territory community.

Senator Scullion had been set to visit the Aboriginal community of Hermannsburg in central Australia to assess the effectiveness of new truancy officers hired to improve school attendance at bush schools.

Local people are being employed as truancy officers as part of a $30 million Commonwealth program.

Today is the first day of school at Hermannsburg, about 130 kilometres south-west of Alice Springs.

But overnight a 13-year-old boy was killed in a car accident at nearby Glen Helen.

As a result, almost no children turned up to school.

Cultural obligations require their families to participate in 'sorry' business, a period of mourning that can mean children do not attend school for days.

It is just one of the issues facing the campaign to boost school attendance by Indigenous children at remote community schools.

After the cancellation of the Hermannsburg trip, Senator Scullion instead travelled to Tennant Creek, about 1,000 kilometres south of Darwin, where he praised the work of truancy officers there.

School attendance at the town's primary school had been sitting at about 390 students last semester but 420 children turned up for the first day of term today.

Senator Scullion said the school principal told him this was a direct result of the truancy officers.